


Hiding the Brushstrokes

by Marquise



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Books, Regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:32:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marquise/pseuds/Marquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>You’re painting a masterpiece, make sure to hide the brushstrokes.</i> Past hurts pile up in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hiding the Brushstrokes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the gameofships minor house contest, using the prompt: _Regrets collect like old friends / Here to relive your darkest moments / I can see no way, I can see no way / And all of the ghouls come out to play / And every demon wants his pound of flesh / But I like to keep some things to myself / I like to keep my issues drawn / It's always darkest before the dawn "Shake It Out" -- Florence + the Machine_

“What are you thinking of?” 

It’s a simple question, and one that has been asked of her many times over the past few years. One that Petyr in particular has asked her many times before, his mouth pressed against her ear, his breath brushing her hair across her face. In these moments his words always blend together, his voice heavy and sated, though she can always understand him. Sansa wonders, always, how much of that is an act to get her to let him in.

But she’s been guarded for so long she’s not sure she knows how to live openly again. She pictures it as feeling like an old gown—she would remember the fit, but now the sleeves are too short, the hem too high, everything about it slightly off. 

Petyr kisses her just below her ear, his fingers making lazy circles along her stomach. Sansa could play at being asleep but she knows he’ll never buy it. Her breathing is all wrong for that, and now as his hand dips lower to tease her between her legs, she lets out of soft sigh that she hates herself for. 

“Nothing.” She breathes the word more than says it, trying to make it look like her mind was truly empty. She’s glad, and not for the first time, that she’s not facing him. 

She can’t tell him what she was really thinking, the constant worries and regrets that refuse to leave her mind. They survived the war, had arrived at and were welcomed by the Tyrells in King’s Landing once the ashes had settled. She had done well enough before, when all they cared for was survival and success, but now that she has a break in those worries she has found herself overwhelmed with past grief, the kind that makes itself most known in the darkness right before the dawn breaks. 

Sansa worries plenty about current events, of course—the capital still remains a nest of vipers, just ones with lovelier smiles—but with her old name came all her old pain, washing over her in waves at night. At night she thinks of the life she once wanted, with a courtly Lord Husband and children. She pictures her own parents in these dreams, herself in her mother’s gowns, and that’s usually when she needs to stop dreaming, before her self-control completely slips away. 

She never tells Petyr about any of this, of course, though she knows that hearing of her regrets would be the best way to wound him. She also knows he wants in. He tries to chip away at it, especially in bed—he’s as adept at using his body as any woman she knows—but to what end she’s not sure of. Does he wish to share her grief over her mother? Does he feel as empty sometimes as she does now, with their increasingly false personas? Does he just wish to diminish her, bit by bit, with every secret he extracts from her? 

She doesn’t know, but she suspects it’s best to keep these thoughts locked away in her mind. 

Petyr begins to stroke the side of her clit with the lightest pressure imaginable, making her instinctively squirm against him. She’s grateful for this, as it gives her the opportunity to push all those worries, all that pain, out of her mind and focus on the here and now. Her mouth opens in a sigh and Petyr nudges her head back just enough that he can claim it. She no longer fears him seeing her face, as the fiction between her thighs is enough to mask any true emotion, anything she know he longs to see there. 

_(Sometimes she wants him to see, because then what would he do? But the thought of these emotions being known to anyone but herself, being known to him, always kills that idea.)_

And sometimes she wonders if he’s not the same. It wouldn’t surprise her—they are so much alike in other aspects, in ways that she wasn’t able to articulate until some years had past. She knows his heart must be full of regret, the pain that had accompanied his steady rise from nothing. He’s a bit more open than Sansa, but still she knows that she must not see all of him. She doesn’t try to unravel it, though, as he does with her. She’s comfortable letting him have this to himself. 

Sometimes she thinks that if she unburdened herself to him that he would give her something in return. But she knows that’s not something she can count on, and the thought of letting him in, of giving him the last of her secrets and handing over the last of her power, frightens her more than the idea of suffering in silence. 

Petyr speeds up his hand and she comes quietly, in a series of broken gasps. His chest rises and falls against her back as she spasms in his arms and he kisses her neck slowly and repeatedly, as if in gratitude. She smiles into her pillow, glad that he can take some pleasure from this, for she knows she can never give him the openness he craves. 

She falls asleep with his body still wrapped around hers, with the knowledge that all this will be easier to hide come morning.


End file.
